Lunch at Café Gotham

Original Language: English

Títutulu Original: Lunch at the Gotham Café

Year of publication: 1995 (within the anthology Dark Love)

Translation: Íñigo Jáuregui

Valoración: Okay (very good with the illustrations)

In Lunch at Café Gotham Batman does not come out (remember that Gotham is one of the nicknames in New York City) but a character as crazy as the Joker. Nor does it come out, of course: the king does not need to appropriate people of others for his creations, which are quite abound in peculiar, tormented and conflicting types, not to mention the terrifying creatures that populate their narratives.

Summary summary: Steve Davis is a successful professional of the great apple who is not doing so well in his private life; In fact, one day he gets home and finds that his wife Diane has abandoned him and wants divorce. Soon the lawyer of, with whom an appointment for lunch, with the objective, by Steve, to see his wife again and try to convince her to return with him is in touch with him. The thing is not difficult to guess, derail a little to end up becoming a real nightmare for those present.

Not too long story, published first, together with those of other authors, in anthology Dark Love And a year later, in 2002, in compilation Everything is eventual: 14 dark stories And that moves away from what we usually expect from King’s works: here we do not find preternatural presences or characters with paranormal powers. On the contrary, and I don’t want to do spoilerswe can almost include this story within the subgenre splatterGiven the profusion of blood and violence, or, at least, inside the gamberrada subgenre by the king, who suspected it, which sparks in Lodazal writing it …

In any case, if he has deserved a review in a book a day it is not only because of how fun it can be or the well -known pen of the pen (it is a saying) of its author, but because it was published a few years ago independently by the Nørdic editorial, with some no less fun and, in any case, great illustrations of Javier Olivares, which make it a unique and very, very enjoyable book. For sample, a button:

Use: Apparently, this story was adapted to a short film in 2005, with Cameo of King himself included.

Many more works of and about Stephen King reviewed: here